Hold My Hand, The Nightmares Won't Stop
by thetardisinbatcountry
Summary: A random Amy/Eleven idea that came to me. Amy knows the Doctor has nightmares and she does all she can to help him, but he doesn't realize it until she's gone. Did Amy make a mistake in choosing Rory? Oneshot.


He knows he has nightmares, god he knows. They haunt him to the point where he doesn't know if he's sleeping or awake. What he doesn't know is that he screams and shouts in his sleep. And he most definitely doesn't know that his red-headed companion with the cracking legs comes in every night, trying to calm him down.

The first night she paid no attention to the cries from the room down the hall, and forced herself to believe it was just the engines or something. Not him screaming.

The second night she tried finding his room, but had no luck.

The third night, she found it, but she didn't know what to do. She watched for a few minutes, her eyes brimmed with tears, but ran off instead of helping him, even though she knew she should have.

On the fourth night, she shook him awake.

"What's wrong, Pond?" he asks sleepily, but still throwing her his signature childish grin.

"…Um, nothing... thought I heard something," she lies, realizing that he didn't know he was doing it.

"What did it sound like?" he becomes alarmed, jumping out of bed hastily.

"No, it was nothing. Promise. Probably just a dream," she nods.

"Silly old, Pond," he chuckles, ruffling her hair and crawling back into bed and she quickly left the room.

The fifth night, she went in and sat with him. She pulled up an old oak chair with odd carvings on it, and hoped he would know she was there, and that it was just a dream. He didn't get any calmer.

On the sixth night, she held his hand. It stopped a little, but no anywhere near as much as she hoped. He still thrashed about and screamed a little. Whatever the dreams were, Amy hoped she never had a dream anywhere near as terrible as the ones her best friend was obviously having.

She held his hand for the next few nights. He often spoke in a foreign language, his native, Amy guessed. Gallifreyan, if she could remember correctly. When he spoke English though, he said names. Hers, mostly, but sometimes there were others. 'Rose', 'Donna', 'Martha', 'Jack', 'Susan', 'Ace', 'Leela', 'Sarah-Jane', just to name a few. She desperately wanted to ask who 'Rose' was. He said her name more than the others. Sometimes he said full sentences, but usually Amy could only guess what they were, usually coming out in Gallifreyan, the only language the TARDIS couldn't translate.

On the tenth night, she held his hand, pushed his hair out of his face and whispered soothing sentences in his ear.

"I'm here, it's okay," or: "It's just a dream Doctor, you're safe on the TARDIS, they're safe too."

It helped. He didn't scream as much if she was there, holding his hand and talking to him. She hated seeing him like that. He screamed, he cried, he thrashed and flailed about, and screamed some more. It broke Amy's heart.

Not once did she dare mention it to him. She didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable around her, as he often was when she asked about his past. If she asked, he wouldn't tell her, just a quick comment about how 'they leave or die in the end'.

It became a usual routine for her. She would wait until she heard the scream, sometimes getting in an hour or two of her own sleep, then go running off to comfort him.

When Rory joined the TARDIS Team, it became more difficult. She had to make sure he went to bed before the Doctor. Rory would most certainly hear him and ask what was wrong. Amy doesn't know what he'll be like if he finds out, and she doesn't want to know either of their reactions if they found out she held his hand every night, neither of them can ever know, one because he would be too shamed to ever talk to her again, and the other too furious she was choosing _him_ over her fiancée.

It was only once she died that he realized what she did for him every night.

He woke up mid-scream, not knowing that he'd been doing it. He looked down to his hand, which was outside of the covers, held in a way that looked like someone else's hand would fit perfectly into it. He then looked to the chair. The old oak chair from the planet Sarchindipopolis, and ancient people who lived amongst the forests in underground huts made of clay and dirt.

He'd never noticed it being so close before. He put three fingers to his throat, where it hurt.

"Amy," he brokenly whispers, a large number of answers clicking together, but another lot forming in his head.

He knew he had nightmares. He screamed in them, he cried, he ran and he thrashed about and begged for it not to happen! He never realized that he did it aloud. He hopes, no, he _prays_, that this was the only incarnation he did it in. He can't imagine all of the people that must have heard him cry if he were wrong, all those who must have seen the pain etched onto his hearts.

Every night he woke up. He always had woken in the middle of the night, but he always figured it was just his internal body-clock, not a nightmare awakening him. He turned to the chair; the chair he refused to move from the position Amy had moved it into oh so long ago. His left hand always caught his eye. It was outstretched to the chair, waiting for Amy's pale, slender hand to take his and comfort him through the night, to tell him that it will all be okay, the nightmares will end soon.

But it never happened.

Amy often found herself waking up at absolutely nothing. She would just wake up. It always seemed to be at 1am. That was usually when the screaming began, if they were staying the night on a planet that had time keeping.

She always got up and sat in the kitchen. She had a cup of tea rested in her left hand, taking a small sip every few minutes, whilst her right hand was outstretched on the table, waiting for the Doctor to take hold. She remember the way her hand would fit perfectly into his strong, rough yet ever so soft hands, remembering how he would squeeze it when dreaming something so terrible Amy never wanted to imagine it, how he would roughly grab it when they ran, or how he would carefully hold her hand when they were out of danger or on the TARDIS.

She always tears up and wishes his hand would suddenly appear, so she could grasp it and save him from the nightmares. She hoped so badly that he had found someone to look after him for her. The Doctor needs a hand to hold so he doesn't fall over the edge.

Amy knows that she picked the wrong life. She picked living with a normal human, even if he was Rory Williams, living in New York in the old days before extreme technology and never leaving, waiting, a family life. She should have stayed with the Doctor, exploring new places, saving people, discovering new worlds and meeting alien races and even becoming an ambassador for Earth when a foreign race wished to come back. Earth is no place for a girl like Amelia Pond.

He often found himself staring blankly at the places she used to sit or stand, reading a book from thousands of years in the future, reading a scroll from an ancient planet or place, reading the first ever copy of Harry Potter. He remembered her watching him—no, studying him, as he single-handedly piloted his beloved machine that was meant for six pilots, teasing him about his 'ridiculous bowtie', or his 'gangly arms and legs', or simply how he danced or _moved_. How she would skip around the console with him, singing songs at the top of their lungs without a care in the world, or joining him in some ridiculous dance she would never do around anyone else. How she would step outside to a new time, or a new world and how she would take it all in with wide eyes, as big as the moon, and then run ahead to explore. How he showed her to pilot the TARDIS, how she and the old girl would gang up on him, how they would swim together for hours on end in the pool, then hop onto one of the pool chairs and pull a book from one of the many shelves in the library that surrounded the pool while they dried off.

Amelia Pond picked the wrong life. Earth had no adventure, no one to act like a complete loon with or someone that when they came to mind, all she could think was 'wow'. No one to hold hands with in the middle of the night, even if they don't realize she's doing it. Rory's hand didn't fit right, like the Doctor's did. Not even anyone to sing terribly with! Rory was far too conservative.

Every night, millions of years and planets and dimensions away, they both do it. They hold out their hand and expect the other to take hold and tell the other to run, or whisper that everything will be okay, or to suddenly leap into a mad dance with around the console.

Years after her terrible decision, Amy held out her right hand out for the Doctor to grasp. She knew he wasn't going to come back, but it gave her comfort. Her last action, one she wished she could do for eternity, to comfort him.

"Be safe, Raggedy Man. Be safe… explore the stars… this… this is how the story must sadly end… I'll wait forever, Doctor... but please… never forget… and… never… loose… hope….. gotcha."

Through every regeneration and every companion, the Doctor does it. His hearts cry out for his dear Amelia. He never was the same when she left. She healed him, only to break him again. Somewhere, deep down, he knows it was the right thing for her to do, but he was too selfish to admit it. He never took anyone's hand in his left. That was _her_ hand to hold.

He never let anyone find his room ever again, or let anyone sit in the pilot's chair, no matter what console room it was or how many regenerations later. He never moved that old chair from his bedside either in fear that it would fade away and all just become a dream. No one was allowed to make him fish fingers and custard or dance and sing with him or be too cheeky with him, and most definitely, no one could flirt with him, and if someone wore a black miniskirt, he begged them to change. He never took another ginger companion either. It was just a little close to his hearts.

On his own death-bed, millions of years in the future, he managed to make his way. He used up all of the TARDIS energy. He killed the old girl, just to get to New York. He went to the graveyard of Amelia Pond, the woman he knows he loved all along, would rest forever in.

He sat by her grave, old and brittle, not looking a thing like he used to.

"If you could see me now, Pond… blimey, you'd never stop the teasing now! …I wasn't the same, Pond," he began crying. "I wasn't the same when you left I couldn't cope without you! I still can't, please, Pond, _please_ come back! I need a hand to hold! I tried and no one else's fit right! Only yours, Pond. I tried so hard! But you held my hand every night! I know you did! You never said a word or complained, you just helped me!" he cries, sobs raking through him like a tidal wave. He thrust his left hand out to grab the side of the head-stone, wishing it were her hand. He held on like his life depended on it.

"Come along, Pond? We'll have fish fingers and custard… we'll finally got to Rio… come along, Pond… _please_?" he whispers.

He fell against the head-stone, still clutching it like a grenade. That was his resting place. Right besides Amelia Pond, the girl who waited and never stopped. They would be together forever, fighting outrageous battles, visiting extravagant places, dancing around and singing like two idiots, eating fish fingers and custard, imagining where to go next in a universe of impossibilities and, of course, they had an awful lot or running to do.


End file.
